EntombedUprising (Metal Is)By: Jeb BraninI think ENTOMBED finally figured out that they have alienated their original following, which wouldn't be a big deal if they had managed to build a new following (how do you spell METALLICA?) but since they didn't do that they have been left to out in the cold as a band people are still willing to buy records from but not because those people are into the band now so much as they respect the history and legend of the band. ENTOMBED are a band whose best days are almost universally seen as behind them not ahead of them. So how does ENTOMBED respond to this? Well, they make a smart move in my mind. They don't try to regress back to their classic death metal roots which would have been an obvious capitulation to their detractors and instead opt to give themselves a new sound that pays homage to their roots but strikes out on its own. "Uprising" is the resulting album. Instead of death metal one might call this "death rock" (except that implies goth, which this is NOT) or maybe "death punk" or maybe "heavy metal death"... I dunno. What you wanna call it is irrelevant. What it is is straight forward hard rock fury with low tuned brutality and ferocious delivery. The vocals are a mix between shouts and death growls and the guitars are busting out all over the place sometimes in finger flying solos and other times in string bending riffage. To be honest it strikes me as what the raw scratch tracks from the "Wolverine Blues" album might have sounded like before they were cleaned up and had the rough edges smoothed out.